According to dictionary.com's definition? No. According to Mooby's criteria? Also no (for organizations).I see your point.

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The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

MENSA only allows people who have high IQ's to join. Therefore MENSA is elitist.NASA only allows people who have high qualifications to join. Therefore NASA is elitist.

We already covered this.

MENSA has an across-the-board cutoff of IQ for admission. What is NASA's across-the-board cutoff for "qualifications?" You basically already admitted that there is none when you shifted your goalposts to remove all the jobs that don't require high qualifications such that the only remaining jobs would support your invalid point. But even among those jobs, is the cutoff universal? Of course not; it's going to be different for each job.

If NASA had an arbitrary cutoff such that everyone including its secretaries have an IQ of 150+ or that everyone including its janitors pass a NASA-administered physics exam or that everyone including its computer technicians have a PHD in chemical engineering, then you might have a point. With NASA, the job dictates the qualifications. The horse pulls the cart. With MENSA, the qualifications dictate the admissions. The cart goes before the horse. The latter is elitism; the former is not.

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If you have a third option, feel free to disclose it. Were I to list every single option in existence, I would never finish typing before I died of old age. I don't claim that those are the only two options. Therefore, you must be quite a big fan of strawman.

That you should list every option is existence is actually a straw man of my objection. Per WikiWiki, simply implying the dichotomy and accidentally omitting additional options qualifies for the fallacy; one does not have to come out and say, "These are the only two options." And there are several different options, like not setting a blanket qualification of statistical outliers for eliteness so as to avoid accusations of elitism, or letting the needs of the organization dictate the qualifications rather than the other way around, or not having stupid BS elitist organizations.

Duh. See the criteria that I went to the trouble of bulleting for you so you wouldn't forget them. Let's go through them again.

Identifies itself with a metric for superiority as per above: for example, "The High IQ Society"About NASA - No identifiable metric. DISQUALIFIEDAbout CERN - No identifiable metric. DISQUALIFIEDAbout Mensa International - LOL second sentence.

No identifiable metric? Bullshit. The metric is academic qualification. That's the main one, anyway. I've spoken to people from CERN who told me a few more.

I couldn't find any evidence anywhere on the About NASA or About CERN pages where those organizations identify themselves with a metric for academic qualification. About CERN does not say, "CERN is a collection of people with high academic qualifications who..."

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Then your argument is moot. To be fair, it was always moot, but this is just another brick in the wall. If they're elitist for trying to get people with high IQ's to join a high IQ organization, regardless of their goals, then every single organization in existence is elitist, since they only want the elite (relative to them), or the non-elite, when it comes to potentially dangerous experiments.

Have you forgotten my bullet points? I gave two specific goalposts that an organization must meet for me to accuse them of being elite. No, not every single organization in existence fits those goalposts. For instance, Kohl's Department Stores does not meet those goalposts. I know because I worked there, and anyone with an average level of common sense can pass their interview.

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The army won't hire amputees[. . .]

Just about all of the ones you listed were examples of needs dictating qualifications, not the other way around. The only exceptions are those you didn't directly list but are extensions of these: elite military groups and all star teams. These groups self-identify via an elite metric and use said metric as the barrier for entry. Thus, I would consider elite military groups and all star teams "elitist" (but not "BS elitist.")

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If what you're trying to accomplish is getting people with high IQ's together, for whatever purpose, it kind of seems like the only metric, doesn't it?

I am tired after having walked, climbed, walked again, run, climbed a second time, stood, walked some more, climbed again, then, to top it all off, as soon as I had sat down at my desk, I got a couple of people from the "Church of Jesus Christ" knocking at my door, whom I politely told to go away, so I'm only addressing this bit for now.

If you are the best at something, you kind of are (read: are) superior to everyone else in regard to that something. So your point is that the elite shouldn't claim to be the elite because... What? Why exactly shouldn't people be honest about their skills?

Now I'll politely wait for another either-or fallacy claim...

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The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

His point was Mensa are a self-congratulatory bunch of dicks who primarily join Mensa to show off and be pretentious based on the score of a test of dubious merit. There is a difference between that and being proud of employment at NASA. And you are obtusely badgering him over a completely pedantic point, for what reason I cannot divine. Your persistence in this does not exactly cast you in a favorable light. Let it go, man.

Unofficial. I don't plan to take one again. I was merely curious about how my kids were tested.

Sorry I missed that. It was a bunch of logic problems and 3D shapes you had to turn in your mind to pick the right answer. Very visual. It was about 20 pages.What was it like, if you don't mind my asking?

I sucked, I scored "higher average." On tests that include knowledge of different topics I score "above average" or "superior." It just goes to show it's all in the test. We're all more intelligent in some areas than others.

I have a friend who is in MENSA. She is not douchy or pretentious at all. She just happens to have a high IQ and enjoy occasionally consorting with others who also do. I sometimes hang around other music geeks. That doesn't make us elitist because people can't do what we do.

Missed you Nam!!!!

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It doesn't make sense to let go of something you've had for so long. But it also doesn't make sense to hold on when there's actually nothing there.

The really neat thing is, I can score much higher on that test if I take it a couple more times. I'd be willing to bet someone $100 dollars that it would only take me two more tries to get a 140 or above.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

I don't think that IQ is a measure of intelligence first of all, second of all, I don't think that quantifiable intelligence really determines how you see the world, I think that has more to do with your experience and disposition.

I think that everybody, low and high IQ, has the same capacity to be reasonable, empathetic, caring and respectful. some very intelligent people have been none of these things, and some very stupid people have been all of these things.

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"A moral philosophy that is fact based should be based upon the facts about human nature and nothing else." - Mortimer J. Adler

You can argue with the definition of intelligence though, and this is mainly what causes problems.

I don't think it's a good indicator of how people see the world in the first place. Even if IQ did measure intelligence, I think it would be more or less irrelevant. I think that, For the most part, our experience and disposition account for how we see the world.

That said, people with very high and very low IQs see the world differently from the majority and thus may not be as "in touch" with the majority.

Interesting. I never took you for a "Majority Rule's" type of person but I guess you are correct. A couple billion Muslims can't be wrong.

Strawman much? Graybeard just said that people with very high and very low IQ's see the world differently. No claims as to whether their views are right or wrong.

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The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

However, the majority fall under that pretty little umbrella of average and the average person believes in some sort of god.

Unless you can prove that average IQ=average religious belief, this is a moot point, as is everything else that follows it.

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The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

Unless you can prove that average IQ=average religious belief, this is a moot point, as is everything else that follows it.

Maybe. I was focusing more on the majority. However, I'm not sure it's a moot point. The majority of people have an average I.Q. and the majority of people believe in some sort of god. I don't think I could actually prove anything in regards to one being equal to the other. I was just surprised that Graybeard said something to that effect. I'm sure he was thinking about things in more detail and with more nuance than I read into it.

I just tend to agree with philosopher_at_large in that I believe our world view is more influenced by our personal experiences than our individual intelligence quotient but I do understand that our intelligence plays a role in how we decipher what's going on around us.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

Maybe. I was focusing more on the majority. However, I'm not sure it's a moot point. The majority of people have an average I.Q. and the majority of people believe in some sort of god. I don't think I could actually prove anything in regards to one being equal to the other. I was just surprised that Graybeard said something to that effect. I'm sure he was thinking about things in more detail and with more nuance than I read into it.

I just tend to agree with philosopher_at_large in that I believe our world view is more influenced by our personal experiences than our individual intelligence quotient but I do understand that our intelligence plays a role in how we decipher what's going on around us.

I also agree with you both. However, like a good scientist, I keep an open mind.

The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

The majority of people have an average I.Q. and the majority of people believe in some sort of god.

I agree but I'm not sure that correlation = causation

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I was just surprised that Graybeard said something to that effect.

I would be too if he had said that!

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I just tend to agree with philosopher_at_large

I do too, except when he says IQ does not measure intelligence: It measures one definition of intelligence. It is quite elusive - almost as if we could say, "If we knew what it was measuring, it would be really useful."

That said, people with very high and very low IQs see the world differently from the majority and thus may not be as "in touch" with the majority.

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Give me an example.

I’ll give you two who I know personally – I have changed the names as they are still alive:

I worked with Dr Morgan Greenfield PhD (Oxon) who did his dissertation on Russian neologisms and impressed the world of linguistics with his wide abilities across many languages. Even before he obtained his doctorate, his presentations were well attended. Outside linguistics, his ability to make links between disparate pieces of information was more than impressive and this merely bore out the remarkable marks that he had received in the examination for the position he held. However, I gave up asking him to translate Russian as even the simplest pieces were, to him, a massively complex work that demanded perfection. Many times I said that I wanted a small cheap car, not a Rolls Royce – the gist, not a dissertation – but he could not let go. This went for a lot of his work. If he made a mistake, it worried him for years, even if the mistake were of little consequence. Interestingly, he would suddenly say something like “Ah! That’s the irregular ablative feminine plural as in Basque... interesting!” in the middle of a meeting. He would then look around, smile and start making a few notes.

He’s a really nice guy but his world view is hard to find and he is a little out of touch with what people really want, his priorities are probably unique.

On the other hand, there is Jane Watson: 27 and severe Downs Syndrome… she does not understand the world and is basically out of touch.

Why did you need examples from me?

« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 06:08:50 PM by Graybeard »

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

The majority of people have an average I.Q. and the majority of people believe in some sort of god.

I agree but I'm not sure that correlation = causation

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I was just surprised that Graybeard said something to that effect.

I would be too if he had said that!

I am not sure that correlation = causation either in this case. Does a higher I.Q result in a god belief? Does a lower I.Q?

I know a great many of people who I feel are lower than me on the I.Q. scale but are vastly more well off financially and socially. And it's hard to reason with them if they exhibit certain bigotries that I happen to disagree with. Why? Well, they make more money than me so they must be right! But that is neither here nor there in regards to this conversation.

It was the phrase "out of touch with the majority" that caught me by surprise. I read in that phrase some ominous overtones. Like how President Obama seems out of touch with the majority. Or how President Bush seemed out of touch with the majority. As if the majority opinion is the standard by which our leaders decisions should be measured.

Then there was the religious aspect that I read into it.

So, I apologize for reading more into your statement than you intended to convey.

I still stand by my first comment on this thread. 100 people could have the exact same I.Q. but wildly different world views.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

I had my IQ tested three times, once in elementary school, once in high school, and once in my 30s. All three times it came out between 138-143.

I don't know how accurate that is. There are many things that I'm very good at, including strategy and problem solving, but many areas where I'm talking to people, like on this forum, and I feel like I'm talking to people who have extremely strong intellects and reasoning. So either everyone here is a genius or I'm not as bright as my IQ tests indicated. =-)

I used to be a Catholic/Christian... I was taught as a kid to believe, but kept looking for better answers at different churches when I kept running into things that didn't make sense. I've attended Catholic, Evangelical, Non-Denominational, Presb, Baptist and Lutheran Churches, but it took me forever to get the courage to challenge the core belief that there was a god at all.

Some things happened that were pretty strong coincidences that I mis-read as proof of god.

Clearly I wasn't smart enough to challenge the core belief as a child or young adult.

I think I'm more like Matt Dillahunty, where it took him a long time in losing arguments against atheism to admit that there's just no basis for believing in the Bible as being a true or good thing.

I don't think IQ has much to do with your beliefs, but, it's possible that being a good critical thinker will help to free you from delusional beliefs at some point?

Ok, I am hardly ever on here anymore (so, nice to meet y'all that I haven't met before), but I decided to come check things out and wasn't originally planning on posting...BUT I came across this post and just had to reply to it because I was just talking about this sort of thing earlier today. The "thing" I am referring to is your belief that perhaps you are not as smart as you think, especially compared to everyone else, and it is actually an offshoot of something called the Dunning Kruger effect. This theory suggests that those who are unskilled/incompetent/ignorant are so much so that they have no idea just how ignorant they truly are, and thus have an inflated sense of ability or knowledge. Likewise, those who actually DO have a decent skill set/knowledge/competence tend to underestimate their abilities, especially in comparison to others, as a result of recognizing how much is out there to still know and learn about. So, your response is actually not terribly unusual for a smarter than average person.

You should also note that forums like these have a bit of a self-selection process going on here; I would imagine that debate of such topics attracts a higher than average number of smarties. So that would make it seem overrun with intelligence (although there are also the astoundingly ignorant posters here and there, also - yay, variety and averages!).

As for the thread topic...I think if you are profoundly gifted, you are probably more likely to fall into the (admittedly generically named) group of people who simply view the world differently. I think there may come a point where you are so smart that you just aren't functioning at the same level as everyone else, and this may naturally give you an extremely divergent worldview. I've encountered a few people like this, and it was tough, as it seemed there were a lot of social adjustment issues for them. One in particular seems both disgusted by everyone else - total misanthrope - but also incredibly lonely and insecure. He seems to struggle with relationships of all sorts, and his IQ didn't seem to really be doing him any favors in most other aspects of his life, either. He seemed a bit Aspie, to be quite honest, but I'm not qualified to make such distinctions.

I also think that if you have creative tendencies along with your higher IQ, you may fall into this camp. I could relate to the "mundane tasks seem painful" comment myself; I find it difficult to care about the same sorts of day to day things that most other people seem to care about (and my IQ tends to run 2-3 standard deviations above the mean, depending on which scale you're using). My husband often wants my feedback on certain things, like what kind of car I want or how a certain housekeeping task should be done, and I just don't really care that much. I also have a hard time caring about feedback from others, good or bad; my sense of ego seems fairly low and it takes a lot to "activate" it, although I will participate in standard polite social norms as that makes my life smoother and I know other people probably appreciate it. I just care much more about what I think and what I need to do; other peoples' expectations for me are virtually irrelevant, although I also typically don't care much what other people want to do with themselves, so long as it's not harming me or others. I do get very irritated with forced expectations, though; it is not unusual to hear me rant about particular ubiquitous Western cultural values that I do not want to get on board with, like consumerism and beauty and American nationalism and etc. I've had to learn to avoid many forms of media and certain types of people so that I don't have to listen to all that nonsense.

BUT...based on all this, you might say I'm just like many other weirdo hippie artists. So maybe I am not all that different after all. Which is super meta.

I still stand by my first comment on this thread. 100 people could have the exact same I.Q. but wildly different world views.

I don't think anyone is going to argue with that. In fact, I'd toughen it up and go for "100 people could havewith the exact same I.Q. will havewildly different world views.

I disagree. Well, I would, wouldn't I?

I think that people with high IQ's are the people who are most likely to successfully deconstruct their world views.

People with lower IQ's are more likely to have world views, which may be religious or not. Religious views are easy but so is pseudoscience. It depends on the surrounding culture and personality.

For people with high IQ's, I think their ideas will become similar in areas they actually study. In other areas they can still have bad ideas which are based on personality and culture.

My Similarities to Urs, I usually don't watch TV for months at a time, and I would probably be suicidal if I had had to work a 9 to 5 job.

My Differences from Urs, I think presentation and interaction is important so I think about day to day tasks when it affects how I will be interacting with others. I don't like feedback when it is imposed on me but I do like to look for feedback when I find it helpful. For example, on this site, I like to read atheist answers which approach something in a way which is different from the way I would answer. (I am not usually impressed by the answers of christians.)

I don't know my IQ and don't care, because I don't want to label myself. I had an IQ test at school which I faked with semi-random answers for that reason.